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On the optimal provision of social insurance

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  • Krueger, Dirk
  • Ludwig, Alexander
Abstract
In this paper we compute the optimal tax and education policy transition in an economy where progressive taxes provide social insurance against idiosyncratic wage risk, but distort the education decision of households. Optimally chosen tertiary education subsidies mitigate these distortions. We highlight the quantitative importance of general equilibrium feedback effects from policies to relative wages of skilled and unskilled workers: subsidizing higher education increases the share of workers with a college degree thereby reducing the college wage premium which has important redistributive benefits. We also argue that a full characterization of the transition path is crucial for policy evaluation. We find that optimal education policies are always characterized by generous tuition subsidies, but the optimal degree of income tax progressivity depends crucially on whether transitional costs of policies are explicitly taken into account and how strongly the college premium responds to policy changes in general equilibrium.

Suggested Citation

  • Krueger, Dirk & Ludwig, Alexander, 2015. "On the optimal provision of social insurance," SAFE Working Paper Series 110 [rev.], Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE, revised 2015.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:safewp:110r
    DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.2623069
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    2. Ozlem Kina & Ctirad Slavik & Hakki Yazici, 2020. "Redistributive Capital Taxation Revisited," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp674, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Progressive Taxation; Education Subsidy; Transitional Dynamics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies

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